penny carnival

Tutorial: fabric flowers

I'd like to put a shout out to God, the angels, the fairies, and whoever else might be responsible for inventing preschool. It started last week--for both girls!--which means Mommy can now make work phone calls without someone screaming in the background about their stuffed zebra needing a diaper change.  

We're looking forward to some extra curricular activities coming up, like a neighborhood parade Bo is instigating and a visit from Nana and Papa soon.

Oh, and a Swedish invasion. J is in a local Rotary club here. Great organization, but it makes me feel like I'm 65 years old when I say that. Some Rotarians from Sweden are coming to town next week and we'll be one of the families hosting them for a week. I've been putting together a menu and trying hard to not just imitate the offerings at an Ikea restaurant. Tee hee hee. Wouldn't that be hilarious? (French fries, anyone?) In fact, I keep referring to our guests as the "Swedish meatballs," something J hopes the girls won't pick up on.

We checked out some Swedish-y books from the library for the girls to sort of prep them, and you might see a Scandinavian-inspired kiddie craft here by the end of next week.

Speaking of books, I just learned about an online service called Storybird where you can make your own storybooks with and for your children. The art you can choose from is inspiring. Despite that, I had total writer's block when I was dinking around there earlier today. I can see Storybird becoming a minor addiction down the road, though.

Anyhow, the only crafty thing I've got for you today is the fabric flower tutorial I promised a while back. The instructions here are for hand stitching since I created them for a make-and-take booth at the fair, but you could easily whip these out with a machine. 

Fabric Hair Flowers, A Tutorial

You will need:

needle and thread

2 felt (or fleece) circles, about 3/4 inch in diameter 

A button

A strip of fabric that's about 2 inches by 30 inches long*

Bobby pin or other hair clip

*Option: if you don't want a frayed edge, your strip of fabric should be about 4 inches by 30 inches long

1. Thread your needle. Insert it on one end of fabric strip, then make a "running stitch" along one of the fabric strip's long ends, going in and out of the fabric every 1/4 inch or so.

2. Once you've stitched all the way to the end, pull the thread so the fabric bunches up near the knot. Tie a knot to hold the bunching in place, but don't cut the thread yet.

3. Sew together the two short ends of the fabric strip with the right sides of the facing each other so that your "circle" is closed. Knot and cut the thread.

This is what your flower should look like now:

4. Hold one felt dot in the center of the front of the flower and the other dot directly behind it on the back side of the flower, sandwiching the bunched-up part of the fabric flower inside the two felt dots. The felt dots are basically going to hide the messy part of the flower where your running stitch is.

 

Thread your needle with thread that matches the dots. Stitch through all layers, making your way around the dots. Knot and cut the thread.

5. Thread a needle with thread that matches your button. Sew the button to the front of the flower, starting with your needle coming up through the back side. Knot and cut thread.

6. Sew a bobby pin or other clip to the felt dot on the back side of the flower. 

7. Put the flower in your hair and feel this fabulous:

*The flowers you see above have raw edges, so they will fray. I'm kind of on a fray kick right now, so I'm cool with that. 

But if you want your flowers to have a more finished look, cut your fabric strip twice as wide as you want the finished flower to be. Then, before you begin your running stitch, fold it in half lengthwise so the two long raw edges are together (wrong sides facing). Then do your running stitch through the two layers of fabric and all your messy raw edges will be in one place--tucked underneath the felt dots eventually.

This fairgoer made it that way and I thought it came out great:

Another alternative is to make two flowers, one slightly larger than the other, and then layer them on top of each other before you sandwich them in between the felt dots. That's what I did here:

Stick-bound book tutorial

I've got food on the brain (when do I not?).

Our garden is on the verge of exploding. So far, we've been able to eat what it grows but I think within the next week it'll start outpacing us and J's co-workers will mysteriously find zucchini and patty-pan squash sitting on their desks in the morning.

Enter this recipe for ratatouille from The Leftoverist (A.K.A. Sarah, a friend of mine from high school who I've mentioned here before). I've got it roasting in the oven right now. The smell of the basil is killing me (in a good way)--not to mention the smell of tomatoes that's lingering on my fingers. 

I plan to eat it this way tomorrow.

I'm convinced that Sarah needs to write a cookbook. Her photos alone are stunning, not to mention the artwork her sister Naomi has done for the blog.

Now, if I were to write a cookbook, it would be this big:

In other words, itty bitty. 

This little booklet is one of the make-and-take crafts I'll be teaching at the county fair I mentioned last week. I'm running a booth as part of my gig for the local newspaper as a blogger for its "Down to Earth" Web site.

Everything will be made from secondhand materials, so I've been hitting every thrift store and garage sale in town over the last few weeks collecting supplies. Even the hole puncher we'll be using to make these books was a 99-cent find from The Classy Rack (don't you love it when thrift shops get clever with their names?). 

I figure this little booklet, which is bound with a twig and some twine (or yarn or strong string--whatever you have handy), could be used for grocery-shopping or to-do lists. If I were really great at entertaining house guests, I would print out the recipes of the food I made for them while they were staying with me, bind the recipes together this way and then give the book to my friends as a departure gift. As it is, my last house guests were lucky to get clean sheets and take-out pizza.

If you can find a use for this little booklet, please enjoy this tutorial:

1. Choose a front and back cover for your booklet. The paper should be cardstock-like, so consider using cereal boxes, softback book covers, old calendar pages, etc. In the pictures here, I used the front and back cover of a small coloring book from 1967.

2. Choose some filler paper. I like to mix blank pages with pages from old books, dictionaries or graphing paper.

3. Find a twig, pencil, chopstick or other short stick and a piece of strong string or twine that's about 15 inches long. (The length of your string will depend on how tall the book is that you're making.) 

4. You will also need a hole puncher, scissors and either a clothespin or paper clip.

5. Arrange the papers in your hand like a book, sandwiching the lightweight paper inside the heavier cardstock. Tap the stack on the table so that the edges of the left side are even and hold everything together with your paper clip or clothespin. 

6. If the papers aren't already all the same size and shape, trim around everything so all the pages (including the front and back cover) are the same size.

7. Punch two holes on the left side of the stack, a few inches apart.

8. Lay the stick on the right side of the holes. 

9. Poke one end of the string through the top hole of the book, pulling it through so that about half the length of the string is sticking out the front of the book. Wrap the string around the stick once or twice, then poke the string back through the hole toward the back of the book. Pull so the loop around the stick is snug.

10. Repeat that step with the bottom hole.

11. Pull tightly and tie the ends of the string together in a double knot on the back side of the book. 

12. Trim the ends of the string. Or don't. Whatever.

You're done!

The stick binding isn't practical for, say, a journal or anything else you'd be opening often and writing in at length. But it's kind of a cute, earthy way to present something special, like maybe a wedding program (grrr ... there I go again re-doing my wedding seven years later). 

While I have your attention, I just have to put a plug in for some amazing Spokane talent. Last night, J and I attended a fundraiser for a food co-op that's opening soon here. For an extremely reasonable price, we were treated to some top-notch entertainment, including book readings by 2006 National Book Award finalist Jess Walter and columnist Cheryl-Anne Millsap, both of whom are fantastic people as well as talented writers.

And then pianists Brad Greene and Kaylee Cole took our breath away. You can hear some of Brad's music on his site and Kaylee's here. I know we're all busy people, but if you get a sec give them a listen. 

Hope all is well, my bloggy friends.

 

Neighborly love

I don't care if you live next to Fred Friggin' Rogers, nobody has better neighbors than us. 

We were a little gun shy on the neighbor thing when we first moved to this house two years ago. Without going into detail--because who knows who's reading this blog--we didn't have much luck picking good neighbors in the past. (Picture a cuckoo clock. See the crazy little bird that jumps out every hour on the hour? Now imagine living in the clock next door.)

So when S & G, the retired couple who lives across the street from us now, rolled out the welcome wagon two years ago, we hesitated to get to know them too well. 

Bo, however, did not. Thanks to her effervescent (read: pushy) personality, we had no choice but to become friends with S & G. At age 2, she would stand in our front window and scream S's name when she saw her, waving madly until S came over to say hi. 

And we now thank Bo every day for building that relationship.

S & G have helped us countless times, from snow blowing our driveway to lending us a car when ours didn't work to jump starting our car on more than one occasion to looking after our pooch (rest in peace, sweet Cronkite) while we were away. They call to let us know when we've left our garage door open at night. They bring the girls gifts from the far away places they visit.

One time we pulled up to our house and this sheep, plus two similar friends, were sticking out of the grass greeting us:

S used to own a bed and breakfast, and these were left over from the little shop she ran out of the house.

More than anything, though, they're just fantastic people. We tried once to thank one of their kind gestures with a gift certificate to a nearby restaurant. Instead of using it on themselves, they took us out to brunch with it and insisted on no thank-you gifts from then on.

Except cookies. G isn't afraid to hint that he has a sweet tooth, so if I'm making a batch, I double it whenever possible. 

Today, it was oatmeal M&M cookies. Peanut M&Ms, mind you. Try it. They're way better than when you use plain.

We had a few minutes, so I sewed an elasticized dish cover to go over the cookies. It's one of my favorite projects from the Farm Chicks' cooking and craft book. 

We've been spending more time in our front yard than our backyard lately. Not just because of S & G, although they're part of it. A family with two young boys just moved in next door, adding a lot of life to our street. It's sweet to see the four kids run back and forth between our two yards or cruise on their bikes and trikes around our circular driveway. The boys' mom keeps apologizing for her sons coming over so much, but I am honestly thrilled. The laughter. The shrieks. The conversations that start across the street or across a lawn until one neighbor or the other decides it'll be easier to talk in one driveway instead of from two.

It's how a neighborhood should sound.

Cookin' and bookin'

I'm almost four years into this parenting gig, and I still don't have a clue what I'm doing. Does anyone else feel this way sometimes? 

I guess I thought by now I'd kind of have things figured out. And, yes, there are days when I'm like, "Bring it on! Give me 10 more of these little muffins. I can take it." But a lot of the time I'm second guessing my decisions and thinking of better ways I could have handled a situation. In the meantime, another situation has presented itself, and I'm scrambling to do the right thing.

Don't get me wrong. Life is beautiful and all is well. I just never knew how much time would be dedicated to doing things that I hope will have a positive impact down the road without knowing for sure if they will. Parenting is the ultimate test of delayed gratification, I guess, especially when it comes to teaching values. How do I know if it's sinking in when we talk about kindness or taking care of the earth or each other? One minute, I think Bo is catching on. The next, she's bonking her sister over the head for taking a bite of her Cheerios. As if there aren't more Cheerios in the box. If there's one thing I've got, Kid, it's Cheerios.

At the same time, I'm bombarded with little moments of beauty and gratification all the time: Bo insisting on picking up litter and holding onto it until she finds a trash can (no matter how long that takes). Catching the girls giggling together without them knowing I'm there. The sweet touch of Magpie's hand when she strokes my shoulder from her perch in her backpack throughout an entire 3-mile walk.

One easy little thing we do--with an ulterior motive of instilling respect for nature--is to collect neat little bits from outside and display them on a "nature tray" on our dining room table. We go through phases where I'm more jazzed about doing this than the girls are. And then there are times when Bo is more than happy to rip a bunch of leaves off a tree and bring them inside for further inspection.

Right now, there's a pine cone, two sand dollars, and this in the tray:

What a great find over the weekend, huh? I admit I was a little scared a bee would coming crawling out of one of those hexagons, but it looks like the critters are long gone and now we're left behind with what I think is one of nature's really beautiful art installations. 

I once wrote an article about a man who brought all sorts of things from nature into his home. Mostly skulls, skeletons and big rocks. He had a display of about 15 different skulls of various animals, sitting from smallest (mouse) to biggest (I can't remember. A moose, maybe) in his entryway. In between there were things like raccoons and possums. That must sound really creepy, but believe me--it was lovely. And his four young children were very involved in finding treasures for the house--skulls and all.

FYI--Amanda Soule suggests creating a nature table in her book "The Creative Family." (By the way, can you hardly wait for this?)

Amanda is responsible for another project from our weekend--a photo memory book I made tonight for Bo. 

Bo's school is celebrating all the summer birthdays tomorrow and the parents usually bring in some sort of photo display of the kids' lives. I thought Bo would be excited to read a book about herself, so tomorrow's early birthday celebration was the perfect excuse to make one.

The photos are printed onto special fabric that runs through a regular computer printer. Packets of six sheets cost about $12 at JoAnn's--so use your 40 percent off coupon! I just used Word to arrange the pictures with some text about Bo's life. I wish I'd put more time into it. It truly was slopped together tonight. But I think Bo will like it just the same.

After printing on the special fabric, I cut around the photos and text and sewed them onto 8 x 12 pieces of fabric--all leftovers from dresses I've made Bo over the last four years--using a zigzag stitch. Then I sewed the 8 x 12 pieces to each other with a piece of flannel--taken from some of Bo's old receiving blankets--inside. I'm still trying to figure out how to bind the book since I've created quite a thick stack. For now, I just used three pieces of embroidery floss to connect all the "pages" by threading a needle and pushing the needle through all the thickness by hand, then tying it off. 

Ah! Update! It's 12:45 a.m. and Bo just woke up for a glass of water. She saw the book on the table and giggled her way through it. It's a hit.

Besides those two things, I wanted to share a new blog in my life. In Praise of Leftovers is written by Sarah Murphy-Kangas, a friend of mine from high school. I haven't seen Sarah in almost 20 years, but our moms bumped into each other recently and got to talking about their bloggin' daughters. 

Sarah's is a food blog, but--of course--it's a life blog, too. I think you'll enjoy her beautiful words and photography--not to mention the recipes. Tonight, I followed her instructions for a savory galette and it did not disappoint. What's a galette? Here's Sarah's definition:

A free-form tart. Roll out one disc of this easy dough, dump whatever you want in the middle (sweet or savory), fold the crust up around it, cook it for 30 minutes, be a goddess.

Here's my attempt at deification:

P squared

First of all, thank you, Runs With Scissors, for the great book suggestion the other day. We checked out "The Princess and the Pea" by Lauren Child, and I love it as much as Bo does. I want to live in the pages. I want to wear the princess' tiny dresses and attend a miniature ball.

Since then, I've been seeing the Princess and the Pea everywhere. Ohdeedoh featured a princess and the pea set by Manda McGrory of Tree Fall Design that was completely adorable. 

And then Amanda Soule blogged about the P & P, too, and about how her 3-year-old daughter Adelaide apparently loves Child's book, too. Amanda and Adelaide made a princess and mattress set inspired by Tree Fall's set, and Bo caught me looking at it online.

(By the way, Bo has recently discovered the power of the Internet. "Show me crafts, Mommy." "Show me princess cakes." It's cute and scary at the same time.)

So, of course, she wanted to make a princess and the pea set like Adelaide's and Manda's. (FYI--Manda sells her version in her Etsy shop, if you're interested). We whipped up our own version today while Magpie napped, and somewhere along the way Bo decided it would be a gift for her little sister when she woke up (aw sweet, right? That's the yin to the yang that normally happens between these two sisters).

The mattresses were sewn with Bo on my lap. They're a little iffy in spots because of that, but they were a hit with both girls all the same. The pea is a green pom pom, the bed is an empty mandarin orange box, and the princess is a little fairy finger puppet we've had for a while. 

I have to admit it. This princess thing is turning out to be pretty magical. Somebody pass me some crow.

Good night!

Tutorial: hanging book display

Check it out. My tutorial on making a hanging book display for kiddos is up on Ohdeedoh now. 

Again, this is my entry in the Apartment Therapy February Jump-Start contest, which called out for small home projects that can be completed in a weekend or two. The person with the most "thumbs up" in each category (kids, kitchen, general home, office/high tech, and green ... am I missing one?) win a $250 gift certificate to Etsy. Heaven, huh?

You can look at all the other entries here, and if you want to know who I'm up against just look at the projects in the Ohdeedoh column. Even if I don't win, there are some inspiring ideas there worth bookmarking for later.

FYI--If you're not familiar with Apartment Therapy, it is the umbrella site for several more focused sites, like Re-Nest (green topics),The Kitchen (cooking/kitchen topics) and Ohdeedoh (babies and kids design and parenting issues).

I'd been meaning to make something like this book display for Bo for a while, and the contest truly inspired me to get off my duff. Nothing like a prize to really get me going, I guess. 

So if you like my project, please head on over to Ohdeedoh and click on "thumbs up" to support it. Thanks!

Here are the directions with a few more photos than I was able to submit to Ohdeedoh.

Tools:
-A 47-inch by 42-inch piece of fabric (I used Amy Butler's daisy bouquet).

-Two double curtain rod brackets. I bought mine for about $5 each at Lowes.

-Two, 4-foot long wooden dowels or curtain rods that fit into the brackets. 

Drill and drill bits 

-Level 

-Stud finder 

-Pencil 

-General sewing supplies, like a sewing machine, thread and scissors -Optional: paint, paintbrush and sandpaper (options 1 and 2) and wooden balls or other end caps for the dowels (option 3).

Steps:
We’re bonkers for books at our house, but allowing our 3-year-old daughter to choose her own every night before bedtime can be a lesson in patience. She’s a dilly dallier as it is, but what makes it harder is that her bookcase, like most bookcases, only displays the spines of the books. Since she can’t read the book titles, she pulls every book off the shelf until she recognizes the cover art of the one she wants. 

I made this hanging book display to help solve that problem. It’s modeled after school-grade book display cases that show the fronts of books, and hopefully will make choosing a bedtime book easier (and faster!). 

Instructions: 

-Fold the fabric lengthwise, with right sides facing, so you are working with a double thickness rectangle that is 47 inches by 22 inches. 

-Using a 1/2-inch seam, sew the fabric together around one of the short sides, the long side and about half-way down the other short side. 

-Turn the fabric right side out through the opening, poking out the corners with a turning tool (a pencil will do—just don’t poke all the way through). 

-Sew the opening shut by folding the raw edges toward each other, then top stitching down that short end of the rectangle. 

-Now you’ll need to sew casings for the dowels on the two long ends of the rectangle. You can either do this by measuring the circumference of the dowels and folding that amount of fabric, plus a bit, over or actually laying down the dowel, wrapping the fabric over it, and pinning it along the side of the dowel until you’ve created a tube that holds it. 

-Remove the dowels (if you chose the latter route) and sew the casings. 

-It’s time to hang the hardware on the wall. Locate two studs 47 inches apart on the wall where you want to hang the book holder. (Note: my studs were four feet apart. It’s not a bad idea to find your studs before you start the project and make a book hanger that aligns with your studs. Or just use those little plastic things they sell to hold screws in the wall. The bracket packages I buy come with them.) 

-Using a level, mark the locations where you'll need to drill lightly with a pencil, then drill the holes for the screws. 

-Screw the brackets onto the wall. Hang the fabric on the dowels, then insert the dowels into the brackets. The brackets should come with tiny screws that tighten onto the dowels, holding them in place. 

-Load with books. If you screwed the hardware into studs your book holder should be able to handle a good amount of weight, but don’t go too crazy. 

-Option 1: Before getting started, you could paint the ends of your dowels a color that matches the décor of the room or the fabric. 

-Option 2: If you don’t like the color of the brackets, you could paint that, too, with a paint that adheres to metal. Sand the metal first so the paint has something to grab onto. 

Option 3: In addition to or in place of the tiny screws that hold the dowels in place, you could cap off the ends of the dowels with a cute wooden ball or some clever object. I plan to do this but haven’t found the right thing yet. 

Option 4: The brackets don’t jut out very far at all, but if you’re worried about someone bonking their head, sew slipcovers for them with a little padding inside. 

Option 5: If you have enough wall space, make four or five of these and install them above one another. It could be cute to make a rainbow-like display—red patterned fabric for the top one, orange for the next, then yellow, blue, green, and purple.

Lemonade out of lemons

UPDATE: Leave it to me to totally botch a headline. My bleary-eyed version from last night was such a downer. Instead of "lemons out of lemonade" please enjoy the correct headline above. Thanks for putting up with me, guys.

Can you hear that? It's the sound of water running through the drain pipes outside. In other words, it's like angels are whispering in my ear. (I'm pretty sure I stole that line from Tina Fey.) 

Despite last week's shot of enthusiasm for winter, I'm still anxious for the snow to melt away. It's disappearing, slowly but surely, and I'm almost ready to think about the garden again. 

To help speed things along, I finished that sunshiny lemon dress for Bo that I mentioned the other day. 

That picture makes it look like the sleeves are different sizes, but I swear it looks OK in person.

I always get a little nervous showing close ups since I haven't taken a sewing class since Mrs. Scribner's at Whatcom Middle School. (Now where is that surfboard softie I made?)

Simplicity 2711. Great pattern. I'll definitely use it again.

We've been on a crafting spree lately, mostly because I've put the family on a TV diet. Even though Bo wasn't watching a lot (maybe an hour or two every other day--is that a lot? Oh, Lordy. Maybe it is), I checked out the book Living Simply with Children from the library and was reminded of all the research that supports throwing away the TV altogether. Here are the subheads from the book's section on TV, each of which is followed by research:

-TV transforms our kids--and us--into "consumer units"

-TV gives us inferiority complexes

-TV promotes violence and other negative values

-TV induces an addictive, trancelike state (I totally see that in Bo when she watches)

-TV creates couch potatoes

-TV inhibits learning

-TV is a time vampire

Among other things, I notice we have fewer behavior problems with Bo when we haven't watched TV for a while, so I'm re-doubling my efforts to find more valuable ways to fill our time. (I'll post a photo soon of a doll we made the other day at 5 a.m. when she was wide awake asking for Dora.) We're not going TV free (they've watched two movies in the last week) and it's not like I made a grand announcement with pie charts and bell curves. I'm just trying to better organize myself so that I have alternative activities during times when they'd normally ask to watch the boob tube.

I hope this isn't annoying. Please don't think I'm telling anyone else what to do. If there's one phrase that defines me, it's "to each his own." I just think it's a great discussion to have and I whole-heartedly welcome your thoughts on the topic.

Moving on.

Another project I made recently was a hanging book display for the wall next to Bo's bed. She was taking forever to pick books to read at night because she was pulling every single one off the shelf until she found the cover she recognized. Duh! The kid can't read yet so how is she supposed to recognize a book by its spine?

I entered this into that Apartment Therapy/Etsy contest I mentioned a few weeks ago.  I'll share a few photos now and a tutorial later, once (if?) it gets posted on the contest Web site. (at which point I'll be begging you to head over there and vote for me so I can win a $250 Etsy shopping spree).

(YET ANOTHER) UPDATE: Bo actually woke up excited to wear the lemon dress to school, and she even let me take some pictures tonight while we were making dinner. So here it is in action:

By the way, the fabric is by Alexander Henry, the same designer who created the apples-and-pears motif that you've probably seen around.

Flannel Kisses

We are still in the dead of winter here in Spokane. If it's cold and snowy where you are, too, head to the library or bookstore and check out this book:

Flannel Kisses, written by Linda Crotta Brennan and illustrated (oh so sweetly) by Mari Takabayashi.

We stumbled upon it at the library yesterday and now I want to crawl inside it and snuggle up in front of the itty bitty fireplace with my girls. I'm thinking of buying a copy so I can cut it up, frame the pictures and hang them in the house during wintertime. Brennan and Takabayashi have a book about summer, too, so maybe we'd just rotate out the art every six months.

UPDATE: I just discovered that you can see some of the illustrations from the book here.

I'm not saying Flannel Kisses cured my longing for spring, but it inspired a walk in the cold today and a bit of frolicking in the snow. We still have at least a foot of it in the backyard. If you do too (or wish you did), get your hands on this book--and a hot cup of tea.

Speaking of spring, here's a sneak peak at a sunshiny dress I'm sewing for Bo, as modeled by the salt and pepper shakers. 

P.S. Yes, we really, really like bananas here.

Pencil rolls galore

"Galore" might be a strong word for three.

This morning, I finally was able to make a couple of pencil rolls for my nieces to go along with their Christmas presents (a mishmash of crafty supplies and kits and the book DIY Kids by Ellen and Julia Lupton). With the snow trapping us all week, I couldn't get to the fabric store for wool felt until yesterday. Then we got snowed in again this morning, so I seized the opportunity to sew, sew, sew.

Pencil roll No. 3 came about after Bo saw what I was doing. She hasn't quite grasped the whole "joy of giving" thing yet and was doing her best to convince me that her cousins' pencil rolls should be her own. So I agreed to make one for her, too--a zebra, at her request.

I used a zebra outline from the "stripes" episode of Kids Craft Weekly, minus the hind legs. My printer jammed halfway through, so I can had to make up the zebra's rear end. Nice tail, huh?

I have one more to make for a good friend's 4-year-old son. They're so easy and quick and fun to do. The idea comes from Amanda Soule's book The Creative Family, although I don't follow the directions closely anymore (which might explain some wonky parts here and there).

The zigzag stitch got a little out of control on this one, especially when Bo crawled under the table and sat on the sewing machine's pedal. Twice. Sorry cousin Coco. That's supposed to be a snail under a tree.

Inside:

Why is this shot reminding me of cinnamon rolls? Have I not consumed enough butter over the last several weeks already??!

Help choose my Christmas gift

I know many crafty bloggers out there hold regular giveaways for their readers. (I really have been planning on doing that. One day soon, I promise.) But today I need your help choosing a gift for me. Me, me, me, me, me.

One of my Christmas gifts this morning was to choose a couple craft books to buy. J opted not to pick for me (he's the fourth Wise Man, apparently). That's where you come in. I've narrowed it down to the following and would love to get your feedback. What's at the top of your list? What craft books are you enjoying? Which ones aren't as fabulous as their descriptions on Amazon? Anything I'm missing here?

Complete Embellishing, by Kayte Terry

Seams to Me, by Anna Maria Horner

Doodle Stitching, by Aimee Ray

Stitched in Time, by Alicia Paulson (of Posie Gets Cozy)

Lotta Jansdotter's Simple Sewing, by Lotta Jansdotter

Simple Sewing with a French Twist, by Celine Dupuy

French General: Home Sewn, by Kaari Meng

Zakka Sewing: 25 Japanese Projects for the Household, by Therese Laskey

Sublime Stitching, by Jenny Hart

P.S. Christmas morning was a hoot. Bo loved her dollhouse and Magpie loved crawling from present to present (and then making her way to her favorite toy of all--the drawer in the kitchen that holds the baking ingredients). Hope all your Christmases are magical, too.